Page 22 of Uncharmed

Maeve shook her head and folded her legs underneath her on the wooden chair, evidently excited, and that was all the encouragement Annie needed.

Karma appeared on one of the blankets, arriving on a petal-pink cloud of magic.

She let out a tiny mew and trotted straight over to give Annie a pleased headbutt on the hip from the arm of the sofa.

Annie scooped her up into her arms and carried her over to Maeve.

‘Karma, I’d like you to meet someone very special.

I know you’re not one for unfamiliar company, but please be nice,’ Annie said desperately.

She tried not to recall the times that Karma had encountered ex-boyfriends, Romily, Vivienne, Harmony, Glory.

..All had resulted in at least one minor injury, with Karma refusing to warm to any of them and reasonably concluding that their forearms deserved a personalized combination of kicks, bites and scratches.

‘Aren’t you just the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen,’ Maeve said in an unusually sweet voice.

Before Annie could take a tighter hold, Karma wriggled from her grasp and immediately leapt at Maeve.

Annie lunged, but the snowy cat simply picked her way through the plates, rested her front paws on Maeve’s shoulder and nuzzled her with a trilling purr and a flick of her outrageously fluffy tail.

‘She likes you!’ Annie said, astonished. This whole scenario continued to get stranger by the second. ‘I’m going to take that as a very good omen for our first day of exploring your magic. It’s time we figured out what makes it tick, besides the idiots at school. Are you excited?’

Maeve shrugged, which Annie was starting to learn was a reflexive means of communicating ‘yes’ rather than indifference.

‘Good enough for me. I thought we could start with some kind of—’

‘What were you doing last night?’ Maeve blurted out.

‘What?’

‘I saw you go outside when I went to find a book. Just before midnight – and you were gone for a while. Was it some kind of witchy moon ritual? Did you sacrifice something? Can I join in?’

Annie blanched. She was certain that she’d waited long enough for Maeve to be fast asleep before she began the spell, leaving it until the very last few minutes before midnight.

How careless of her not to have triple checked.

She forced herself to laugh it off. ‘Oh, I just had a bath. Sorry if I was noisy, I was really trying my best not to wake you.’

Maeve gave Karma a scratch under her chin, which seemed to be sending her to another planet. ‘I thought I heard voices. I thought there might have been other people around.’

Annie’s stomach jolted into her throat.

The spirits within the hex. The way they spoke to her, wailing and whispering through the thirteen minutes of the spell.

..But there was no way that Maeve could have heard them.

The ghosts that shared their regrets and mistakes in Annie’s ears were for her to hear and her alone.

That was the pact. They weren’t a real, physical manifestation that could be seen or heard by others.

She had been sure to keep her own voice low, too, uttering the incantation into the water at barely even a whisper, silently fretting and worrying for all of them until the water ran ice-cold.

Quiet, efficient crying was something that she had mastered long ago to get through the bad days.

Maeve must have particularly good hearing.

‘I do sing to myself in the bath,’ Annie laughed casually, gathering up their now-empty plates. ‘That must be what you heard.’

‘Maybe,’ Maeve nodded uncertainly. Fortunately, her curiosity was distracted by Karma, who had rolled onto her back, showing off her tummy in a most undignified fashion that she would never normally resort to. ‘Or maybe the woods are haunted by the spirits of the damned.’

‘Do you think?’ Annie held a hand to her chest at the mere idea.

‘I hope so,’ Maeve grinned. ‘We’d probably get on well, me and the damned. Does magic mean I can communicate with them, if there do happen to be any hanging around out there?’

‘Technically, yes,’ Annie admitted reluctantly as she stacked their plates.

‘Necromancy is another of the branches of magic that you’ll dabble with in time, along with Animal Affinity, Incantation, Earth Sorcery, Alchemy, Clairvoyancy.

But Necromancy is certainly not my favourite; it gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I think for now we’ll focus on the living, if it’s all the same to you. ’

Privately, Annie worried about how Necromancy magic would interact with her use of Splendidus Infernum , so she did her level best to avoid that particular branch of the craft whenever possible.

There were already numerous spirits, ghosts and presences that haunted her tied up in the hex.

Inviting further communication with the dead on top of that was certain to cause chaos.

Not to mention the fact that it was all very creepy.

Annie clapped her hands together, then stood to shimmy Maeve’s chair out with her still sitting on it. ‘Up you get. It’s the first day of your new life as a talented, knowledgeable, in-control witch, Maeve. A little enthusiasm, please.’

Maeve scowled and sighed as she scooted her chair backwards, but Annie was pleased to note the tiniest fraction of an upturned smile being promptly pulled back under wraps. Her positivity might be frightfully uncool, but it seemed to be making progress.

‘Welcome to Witchery 101.’

Annie was never one to trust the process, but she had been left with little other option than to follow her instincts on how one spent time with a teenage witch. She was determined to be the perfect teacher, but their first session was off to a...testing start.

Maeve had not reacted well to what Annie had thought would be an inspiring and motivational academic setup: a small wooden desk for Maeve in the living space, along with a full matching set of kitschy, witchy stationery that Annie felt was a dead cert for magically academic success.

She had also manifested a framed, rolling chalkboard just in front of the fireplace, with a full rainbow of fat chalks that wrote by themselves, a shiny red apple resting on the ledge, as any self-respecting teacher would add, and a wind-up pencil sharpener attached to the side.

‘What the heck is this?’ Maeve scowled, holding up her new broomstick-shaped pencil case.

‘Oh, it’s nothing, really,’ said Annie, mistaking abject horror for gratitude.

‘Everybody knows that any kind of productivity is at least 75 per cent reliant on the appropriate notebook and pen selection. It’s the least I can do.

Now don’t hold back, okay? I myself would list starting a brand new notebook as one of my greatest fears in life.

What if I make a mess on the first page, ruin the whole thing with ugly handwriting or bad spelling?

Don’t even get me started on saving sticker sheets or not using my favourite colours in a pen set.

But I want you to know that this is a safe space, Maeve.

Let your magic and your mistakes run free here! ’

Maeve only blinked hard and her dark eyebrows stitched themselves together in a crease.

‘Now, let me take attendance,’ Annie continued importantly, conjuring a clipboard. ‘Maeve Cadmus?’

Maeve glanced around the room. ‘Are we expecting someone else?’ she asked, stony-faced.

‘Well...no, but you can never be too prepared. So, I suppose you’re present!’ She gave the list of one single name a perfunctory tick with her fluffiest pen and smoothed out her skirt as she cleared her throat. ‘And you can call me Miss Wildwood.’

‘But I’ve been calling you Annie this whole time.’

Annie’s smile jerked a fraction. ‘Well, alright then.’

As always, her magic had been in its upmost element when she’d conjured the outfit – a pink pinafore dress covered in a sweet print of various magical shapes – tarot cards and crystals and cat faces – with an immaculate white shirt and a pink tie underneath for a little professionalism.

In her patent pink heels, she approached Maeve’s desk.

‘Can you consciously summon your magic yet, Maeve? Or does it still just sort of, appear, when it wants to?’

‘Of course I can,’ Maeve said sulkily, as though Annie were silly to even ask.

The two witches simultaneously moved to summon their magic, Annie raising her wrist to create a small flourish, Maeve squeezing her hand together in a fist before bursting her fingers open to send out a stream of sparks.

Magic was accommodating that way – happy to oblige and bend at will to any gesture that a witch, warlock or wicche might be drawn to at fifteen years old.

Annie had always thought it interesting how the choice seemed to reveal a lot about the wicchefolk themselves – whether they were bold or shy, expressive or subtle by nature.

Maeve’s bursting palm suggested a slightly frantic but determined approach, which Annie could definitely work with.

‘An old friend of my mother’s who...yes, perhaps was eventually exposed as a rather nefarious character, determined to raise an army of vampires to his whim, but I always thought his personal choice of simply raising his left eyebrow to knit a spell was a very smooth selection.

In fact, on reflection, that choice should probably have been a villainous red flag to the coven from the outset. ..’ Annie rambled.

‘He sounds cool. Can’t he teach me?’

‘Anyway, look at you, magic on demand. Off to a wonderful start!’ Annie carried on, determinedly ignoring the stream of snark. ‘Now, I know you were very interested in Incantation, so...’

‘I told you, Necromancy,’ Maeve whined, her head falling back to stare at the ceiling.